Forging a close relationship with US President Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher expressed a strong anti-communism and portrayed the USSR as an evil which should be opposed; she has been criticised for firmly keeping the Cold War alive by this approach until Gorbachev arrived in Russia to end it. However, she received Gorbachev warmly. A 1976 speech from before she became Prime Minister, in which she roundly condemned communism, earned her the nickname "The Iron Lady" in the Soviet media, and the west soon adopted it.